Since we only had 33 cards to rank between the two of us, we decided to do things a bit differently. For each card or event, one of us has written a longer piece about what we think of it and then the other has added on their own opinion and additional thoughts. In general, the tops of the lists are more interesting so we have written more for highly ranked cards and will present them first. First, here are our thoughts on how to go about these rankings, which will give way to a visualization of the votes followed by the top 12 community rated $6+ cards.

Bryan: I am considering the cards in terms of how often they have dominant impact on choosing strategy in. $6+ cards fill an interesting role in dominion. At this price point, cards mostly offer very powerful effects that require building towards. In this list I try to touch upon a variety of community opinion justification and our own opinions.

tracer: I look at cards from two angles: power and flexibility. Power is about what the card does to your deck, while flexibility is more of a measure of how well it fits into a variety of different decks; for example a card like Counting House, while somewhat high in power due to its ability to draw a large number of cards, has close to no flexibility since this draw is very difficult to set up. Some combination of these two angles creates my opinions.

There were 39 votes total with as few as 37 votes for some cards.33 cards means each rank corresponds to 3.125%.We have added the unweighted rank in parentheses next to the unweighted average in addition to the normal line.

Visualization of the votes

Before getting into the rankings themselves, here is a plot showing the distributions of votes for each card in the list. The x-axis here is the community rank of a card and the y-axis is percentile. Each larger faint black dot represents one vote - so for example one can see that the 33rd ranked card had one vote around 60%. Darker dots indicate more votes of that percentile - a fully black dot indicates 10 or more votes of that percentile.The smaller red dot is the weighted average for that card.

Bryan: What’s surprising here is that anyone didn’t have it at number 1. In its debut year, 2016, the community started it at #2. This event dominates the strategy of every kingdom it is in, and when used correctly enables swift building. Additional help for this event is that it can be bought at any time, since its price entirely debt.tracer: The perfect control that Donate gives one over their deck is unmatched, and it shines on nearly every board it appears, warping games into something different from anything else in Dominion. A clear number 1.

tracer: While still the most explosive card in Dominion, it has rightfully dropped behind Donate as it suffers on some boards while Donate does not. On the other hand, King’s Court will create decks where no other card could, and can make even the worst actions useful, while with the best actions, the card allows decks to reach heights no other card does.Bryan:Chaining kings courts!

Bryan: Unchanged from last year, Goons comes in very high on the list. This spot is justified by the fact that Goons does so many things. It can be used as engine payload with +2 coins +buy. It provides engine with another source of alt-vp, often allowing huge point gains in multi-goon mega-turns. It has a powerful attack that can oppress any hand-size dependent deck. Together, these make the card dominant in most kingdoms and strategies.tracer: Indeed this diversity of Goons makes it dominant in nearly every kingdom it appears in, even more so than King’s Court, which can be questionable in kingdoms with large amounts of junking while Goons is still quite relevant. For this reason I would have liked to see Goons one spot higher.

tracer: One of the big risers in the 6+ cost list this year, Pathfinding, like King’s Court, can create engines on boards where there otherwise would be none, though perhaps the more common use is adding consistency and terminal space in an otherwise functioning engine. Having said that, I think that this event is somewhat overrated: it requires a fairly specific set of circumstances to be essential and its high price point makes its other use difficult to fit in a build.Bryan: I also think pathfinding is somewhat overrated. At $8, it can be hard to place the token on a cantrip in time to capitalize on the price point. Lost Arts is more relevant more often.

Bryan: Fortune offers an insane effect at an insane price, hidden under the split pile of gladiator. Doubling the total payload of a completed engine while adding an extra buy can have a huge impact on the game. For me, however, this card is grossly overrated for a few reasons. It is rarely worth emptying the gladiator pile to reveal fortune to both players, so fortune is not used in a large portion of games where the pile appears in the kingdom. Additionally, $8+8 debt is an insane cost, and if not constricted on buys, it can often be better to invest in two provinces or building in some other way even when fortune is revealed.tracer: On this one I stray from my co-poster a bit; the cost here is usually easily recouped with the help of Fortune the following turn, while it is the power of Fortune that drives people to buy Gladiator since getting Fortune first or at all if not mirrored can win games.

tracer: Rising with the similar Pathfinding, Lost Arts can also make engines happen and add consistency. Unlike Pathfinding with cantrips and villages, Lost Arts’ price is easy to reach with the terminal draw cards it often is used on and is a good early buy which helps accelerate a deck. Lost Arts can also allow payload expansion by placing it on a payload card with non-terminal draw, which along with the former point is why I would rate it above Pathfinding.Bryan: Build your own village! As a village fan, I’m happy with the placement of this event.

Bryan: City Quarter provides an engine and village in one card. While it costs a lot, 8 debt can be paid over a few turns, meaning it is reliable to count on CQ to be the entire enabler for a deck with a few turns investment. To me, this card’s slight decrease in rating is not justified, and it should have maintained the rank of last year.tracer: It is surprising as well as disappointing to see this card fall, as it can make decks work and even excel with very little support. It is the only 8 debt card that consistently seems worth its price.

tracer: One of the more quirky things in Dominion, Inheritance is also one of the best. In addition to creating a pile of decent actions that give 1 point and only cost 2, it also transforms a number of dead cards in deck into something desirable. Even with Estate trashing it is usually worth going for and has a few targets that create something incredible for that low of a cost. Bryan: Inheritance enables completely unique strategies. It often changes kingdoms into a race for $7.

Bryan: Border village itself is just an expensive village, but it allows many neat gaining tricks, can be remodeled into provinces, and can help build up consistent engines quickly by allowing the gain of terminal draw and villages at the same time. As an engine and village fan, I support the slight this rank climb from last year.tracer: It is nice to see Border Village finally rising since it allows in $6 and 1 buy what would typically take $8 or $9 and 2 buys. This added speed makes for a card that rarely goes untouched.

tracer: Perhaps the most versatile card in Dominion, Overlord’s ability to act as any 5-cost can make it an essential opening buy and also have it maintain efficacy late into the game. However, its high cost can lure one into a cycle of only buying Overlords while never being able to actually reach $5, and the best 5-costs will often run out, limiting Overlord’s potential. I am wary of its rise.Bryan: Overlord shines most when it can replace early trashers and then transition seamlessly into being all parts of the engine. When this versatility is allowed to shine, overlord is amazing.

Bryan: Grand market is another very powerful card, offering huge non-terminal payload and a +buy source. In games where grand market is good, it often snowballs itself, as using grand market is one of the better ways to buy grand markets. It comes with a hefty buy restriction, however, and often can be ignored due to the challenge of getting started on this strategy. The large drop represents a shift away from this simple grand market deck and towards more complex strategies. I agree with this shift.tracer: With Grand Market versus Border Village being one of the main talking points last year, it seems fitting that with Border Village’s rise comes Grand Market’s fall. Grand Market is a great card, but unlike the cards above it (and some still below it), it is nothing special.

tracer: The appropriately named Dominate does just that as one of the top sources of points in Dominion. Like the other top point sources of Goons and Groundskeeper, one always needs to keep Dominate in mind as a potential goal while building as a single Dominate buy can crush dreams of a pile-out as well as overcome a two Province advantage. Due to these possible swings in game state, I think Dominate ended up underratedBryan: This event might be underrated in that it almost always changes the strategies of the board to be focused on being able to generate $14. Two dominates can catch up to 5 provinces, so it is very hard to ignore this event.

Bryan: Artisan is an interesting gainer. It is new this year in an update to the base dominion set. Instead of gaining to the discard, it gains to your hand, at the cost of topdecking a card. In engine, this often means you can use the exact card you need immediately. In slower decks bound on terminals, this often means you can use the card you want next turn. This is quite a strong gainer, but in my opinion the upside of artisan is worse than the upside on altar.tracer: Compared to Altar, I would say this is more different than worse (part of that is because Artisan is actually a gainer). Artisan itself is a welcome change from any of the removed cards just for being useful and goes well beyond that.

tracer: Altar’s rise is appropriate: it trashes bad cards and gains good ones; what more could a person want? Clearly a good card, its position this low on the 6 cost list shows just how strong many of the others are, even if I think it should be a bit higher.Bryan: Altar is my favorite of the $6 workshops!

Bryan: This card is fairly simple. For terminal draw, hunting grounds is a bit overpriced and can take too long to set up. The cute trash text on it is very rarely relevant. Watch out for HG+lurker boards, though. This card is overrated for me.tracer: While drawing cards is always nice, $6 is a lot and +4 cards usually makes it so that you end up overdrawing by 5-10 cards just to stay consistent. While certainly an occasionally necessary card, it is uncommon that one would not rather be doing something else to draw.

tracer: One of the stranger cards for this list just because it doesn’t really belong, Peddler had both a first place and a last place vote. Most often bought in large quantity when costing $0, shoving handfuls into one’s deck is usually effective, and so a rating close to the middle seems fine.Bryan: Additionally, it often gives engine something beneficial to buy on turns where it doesn't find any payload. It has many opportunities to shine, but sometimes is left untouched.

Bryan: The community opinion did not change at all on this card. It opens up the opportunity of powerful consistency of being able to have a 6 card hand for the rest of the game.tracer: I think Hireling ended up underrated, if only slightly. The main thing constraining Hireling is time: if the game is going to be long, Hireling is going to be one of the best cards on the board.

tracer: While being able to be either a village or draw, Nobles is expensive for either and poor at the former. However, as village or draw, it is often essential and with only 8 in the pile, this split can create a significant deck lead along with the points lead, which may contribute to its higher ranking.Bryan: The versatility of nobles combined with offering a few points often mean that players can pick up nobles for a slight point lead before committing to greening.

Bryan: Training is by far the weakest of the action token events. It can sometimes be used in cantrip spam decks as a payload, or bought as payload better than gold in engines sometimes.tracer: Training seems fine where it is. It is regularly better than the first Gold buy but is rarely the focus of a strategy.

tracer: The other big riser of this list (with Pathfinding), Forge is a very effective trasher, though is prohibitively expensive and so is often only used as a last resort. For this reason, the rise seems unjustified since one would most often rather use something else for the same purpose.Bryan: Forge’s rise seems appropriate. Players have been a bit better at managing to activate it as a mid-game trasher.

Bryan: The same logic applies here as on hunting grounds. This card is a bit awkwardly priced. The debt cost is good for picking up early, but RB does not truly shine unless most coppers have been trashed out of your deck.tracer: To follow my own same logic on Hunting Grounds, anything over +3 cards for terminal draw is a bit awkward, and this discards Copper for even more awkwardness. If you need draw though, it draws.

tracer: Falling more than any card except for Grand Market, Fairgrounds may be suffering from the abundance of points that came with Empires, though it can still directly substitute for Province in many decks.Bryan: The community’s declining rating of fairgrounds makes sense. All too often, decks rely on only a few cards to win, or are extremely efficient. So in many games, fairgrounds isn’t cost efficient.

Bryan: Castles can sometimes be useful as an alternate source of VP, or be used when stalling out the game. In general, they are weaker than buying provinces, so they tend to be bought by the player who has developed a stronger deck more slowly. Many of the early castles are early game noob traps. Overall, castles are fairly weak, and are slowly trending downwards.tracer: A point pool for the desperate, Castles usually only end up being good because your opponent went after them and revealed some of the nicer ones for you. Getting the whole pile is nice but unrealistic.

tracer: With a high cost and a need to line it up with a card, Prince buys are often only good once one has a consistent engine, and at that point the effect is no longer needed. This card could certainly be lower, and to me the loss of ranking is nice to see.Bryan: Prince is very hard to set up. It takes hitting $8, redrawinging it while connecting with the right target, and then using up most of a turn to use. I expect this card to continue to drop.

Bryan: Expand is often known as big-remake (or bad remake). I personally think the remake effect is fairly strong, and would rate expand slightly higher than forge, but still fairly low.tracer: Expand is better than any fair ranking of it would lead one to believe as it gives a fair amount of control, particularly over the Province pile. However, like many of the cards lower on this list, it has a high price for what it does, even if what it does is great.

tracer: Bank is a great addition to any engine with multiple buys which has treasure as a large part of its payload, which is somewhat common. While I think it should be higher for this reason, it is held back by not influencing boards like some of the higher cards, instead being a very powerful but situational addition.Bryan: Bank can be an efficient payload for engine, and be a nice treasure to gain off cards like tragic hero. But in many situations it is not a huge replacement over the default gold, or better specialized cards.

Bryan: Hoard is very useful in keeping big money or slog decks with payload density to keep buying big green. It is useful when combined with remodel effects to change the gold you gain into provinces or other strong cards. It can be useful to include in engine to remove the need to pay for additional payload. Overall these uses make me think that hoard is somewhat underrated.tracer: The main problem with Hoard is that it is almost exclusively a card for an endgame mostly involving greening in which Gold is good, which at three conditions is a pretty specific situation.

tracer: Amazing in money strategies and very strong as a point source for large engines, Conquest seems like one of the larger misranks for this year. Conquest allows for huge amounts of building in a way that few other cards or events do, and Silvers with points is exactly what money wants.Bryan: I agree with tracer. Conquest is great in many situations and the community has still underrated it this year, although opinion is changing in the right direction.

Bryan: Wedding is actually a reasonable way to get gold. For total 1 Debt more than a gold, you get the convenience of spreading out the price of the gold and 1 VP. The problem is that gold is not purchased early that often. Overall wedding is a bit weak, and only really useful to rush gold early.tracer: A solid alternative to multiple Silvers early and almost always preferable to buying Gold, but both of those desires are somewhat rare.

tracer: The only Nocturne card on this list comes in near the bottom and it really could have been lower. The attack does very little against engines and while somewhat strong against money, its high price for something that might be worse than Gold in many cases makes it one of the weakest cards we have. I would not be surprised to see it fall even from here in next year’s rankings.Bryan: Another thing to mention is that it isn’t even the greatest payload in engine, because you can only use it every other turn if you’re drawing your deck. This card deserves this low rating.

Bryan: Farmland can be occasionally be used with a gold gainer like hoard for some success. Overall, the points it gives and the smoothing of hitting $6 instead of $8 are rarely worth it.tracer: Farmland has a variety of situations in which to use it, but even in those situations it is unimpressive.

tracer: Another card that suffers from its high price and questionable quality, Harem has a few cute interactions going for it and not much else other than being preferable to Gold quickly in most money strategies. Of course, that’s more than can be said for the last card on this list...Bryan: This card has been completely outclassed by conquest. It is hard to find a use for harem, but it occasionally gets bought late in the game for points when players miss $8.

Bryan: This is a card? Seriously, though, the only time I personally have used this event is on the last turn of the game for overkill wins. Paying $8 for a duchy is far more overpriced than the shuffle consistency ability attached to it.tracer: Actually it’s an event.

Agreed that Pathfinding is a bit overrated. Inheritance is underrated, as well as Border Village I think. Overlord is perhaps the worst misplacement, it should be way down. Altar is the only card that is in my top 12 and not in these, so overall I think the ratings are quite okay.

Fortune‘s Rating is probably based on how powerful the card is once you have it, but not its overall impact on the game. A typical situation is that you have built a reliable engine, hit $8, buy fortune, then pay debt / buy a province, then buy two provinces twice. It takes you 4 turns to get five provinces, which is one turn faster than buying them one by one without fortune.

That makes it worth going for, but the game didn‘t change by that much. You merely need one turn less - nice to have, but in terms of impact, it‘s far away from meriting place 5, at least it shouldn’t be ahead of potentially gamechanging cards like e.g. Lost Arts, City Quarter or Inheritance.

Fortune‘s Rating is probably based on how powerful the card is once you have it, but not its overall impact on the game. A typical situation is that you have built a reliable engine, hit $8, buy fortune, then pay debt / buy a province, then buy two provinces twice. It takes you 4 turns to get five provinces, which is one turn faster than buying them one by one without fortune.

That makes it worth going for, but the game didn‘t change by that much. You merely need one turn less - nice to have, but in terms of impact, it‘s far away from meriting place 5, at least it shouldn’t be ahead of potentially gamechanging cards like e.g. Lost Arts, City Quarter or Inheritance.

It’s very rare that you only have $8 in your deck when you buy and play Fortune. For one it comes with a free Gold, so you’re already up to $22 on the first play right there. Additionally you have generally more economy than $8 in a potent engine deck buying multiple components consistently, as even $1 more than $8 lets you double Province immediately after buying Fortune if you draw deck. So it’s much more worth it than you imply - it’s not just one turn faster at getting to 5 Provinces.

The most interesting games with it are where Fortune is the only +Buy - in these cases, it is usually correct to buy a second Fortune to get a third card every turn, as long as the game isn’t literally about to end.

There is a lot of competition on this list though - and I generally think cards below it should be higher, so maybe it’s the card that has to fall. I fully agree with Pathfinding and Lost Arts being recognized for their power now, though.

Overlord is amazing and is still underrated. See here for more of my thoughts. I buy Overlord in at least 80% of the games it appears in, and sometimes it is the most valuable card in the kingdom. Something important to recognize is that is a completely reasonable price for a lot of good cards. Overlord can act similar to Save or Borrow in the early turns, turning two weak hands into a . Overlord is worse in the sense that you usually can't pick up a or on one of those turns, but it's better because Overlord is almost always better than the best on the board. The flexibility is often fantastic, which I touch on in the linked post. That being said, there are a lot of great + cards, so I can understand people ranking Overlord behind cards like City Quarter and Lost Arts.

Agree with aku that Overlord is underrated. I’d put Overlord well above Border Village, Inheritance and Lost Arts, and maybe over City Quarter. There are games where the right move is to buy almost nothing else.

I put Border Village somewhat lower, and I think part of it has to do with my ranking method, which involved first ranking all villages together. I have a hard time seeing Border Village as particularly good among villages. Yeah sure it only costs an extra $1, and not even a buy. But $6 isn't a good price point for a village, you'd rather have something that costs $3 or $4 so you can pick it up earlier, on low hands, or with gainers. I put Border Village above a plain Village, but below several of the villages with nice utility.

I had Border Village right below Kings Court I think, which was right below Goons. You end up spending $6 on $5 actions so often, a free Village is wonderful, it's almost like having a free Lost Arts token on everything. Sometimes it gets even better when you can trash for benefit too.

I wonder if the perception of border village would change if it were an event instead of a card that read "Gain a village. If you did, gain a card costing up to $5." To me that makes it sound a little stronger. Of course, having an actual card that costs $6 can be highly beneficial when paired with something like salvager or apprentice. I think border village is fine where it is. It deserves to be that high, but everything above it is just ridiculously good so I don't see it going any higher.

I put Border Village somewhat lower, and I think part of it has to do with my ranking method, which involved first ranking all villages together. I have a hard time seeing Border Village as particularly good among villages. Yeah sure it only costs an extra $1, and not even a buy. But $6 isn't a good price point for a village, you'd rather have something that costs $3 or $4 so you can pick it up earlier, on low hands, or with gainers. I put Border Village above a plain Village, but below several of the villages with nice utility.

Border Village is at least in the top 3 Villages (Wandering Minstrel and, I guess Champion? go above it). It’s very hard to understate how much faster it is to build an engine when you need half as many gains and generally less total economy to do so.

My instinct tells me that Overlord is overrated. There's usually one killer 5 on the board, but you might as well just buy that instead of the Overlord. Then the Overlord gets drastically nerfed when the pile empties. I feel like $8 is a pretty steep price for what it does, even considering it's debt.

Inheritance is a tad overrated. There are more than a few boards with no good targets.

My instinct tells me that Overlord is overrated. There's usually one killer 5 on the board, but you might as well just buy that instead of the Overlord. Then the Overlord gets drastically nerfed when the pile empties. I feel like $8 is a pretty steep price for what it does, even considering it's debt.

I think 8 debt is only a bit more than $5. I've never been afraid of somebody piling out the pile I was copying, because it's a lot harder to pile-out actions when you're the only one buying them.

Basically, this is what I expect to happen if a player skips Overlord: Player 1 buys a lot of Overlords. Player 2 skips it. The important $5 cost piles empty slower than usual, because only Player 2 is buying those actions. Meanwhile, the Overlord player has a much more consistent and flexible deck. By the time any piles are close to running out, the game should be almost done.

In direct response to the points made about Inheritance, it is worth noting that as well as reducing a cost, it also opens up 8 more of whatever card you inherit, which is a really big deal on hotly contested piles like villages in many games. Also, ability to trash Estates doesn't mean that you are required to do so, and if you can reach $7 within 3 shuffles without doing so, you are generally better off than if you were using a single card trasher.

Good, Annex has reached rock bottom. I don't think I've ever found a use for it.

I had never noticed before that Conquest is really close to strictly superior to Harem. I mean, the extra Silver doesn't hurt in money strategies, and if your strategy is not a money strategy, you also don't want Harem.

Good, Annex has reached rock bottom. I don't think I've ever found a use for it.

I had never noticed before that Conquest is really close to strictly superior to Harem. I mean, the extra Silver doesn't hurt in money strategies, and if your strategy is not a money strategy, you also don't want Harem.

Conquest should really rise. In money strategies, it's quickly better than Gold (at the first $6, you want Gold, and then probably Conquests), and in engines it can be a pseudo-Triumph providing a whole bunch of points.

I think Conquest is pretty accurately rated right now. It's good in money strategies (I actually think you just buy Conquest over Gold every time, outside of edge cases), but money strategies themselves aren't usually competitive. In engines, it would be nice if it worked like a pseudo-Triumph in practice, but that only really ever happens when there's a crazy Silver gainer such as Trader or Raid present; trying to gain all the Silvers with Conquest itself gets really expensive before you're getting enough points that it's worth it.

It still has some utility in engines though. If you're overdrawing, Conquest can be the fastest way to turn that into payload sometimes (ideally you don't want to do that, but sometimes you don't have time for the better options). If you need fodder for your mandatory trashers, Conquest is actually pretty good at providing that, and even if you just have Chapel or something, you can buy Conquest to get +2 VP and get rid of the Silvers later, which isn't amazing but sometimes that can be exactly the thing you need. And it can work pretty much like a Harem in the rare cases where you would buy Harem in engines too.

In summary, nothing super amazing, but it does something useful every now and then, which is also a pretty accurate description of a bunch of cards that are above it and below it.

I disagree with the placement and commentary around Castles. Castles are usually a more efficient way to green than Provinces. If the game ends on piles, neither pile is very relevant, but Provinces are a little better. But if the game is going to last a while, and there isn't a Province-emptying megaturn, you will probably lose if you ignore Castles. The full Castle stack (in 2P) is worth 45+ VP and is significantly easier to obtain than 8 Provinces (worth 48 VP). More realistically, you trash a couple Castles with Small Castles and grab a convenient Province to have a ~44 VP to 42 VP lead over a player who gets 7 Provinces.

You can start gaining Castles ever-so-slightly before you would gain Province, because the early Castles provide some payload. Of the early Castles, Humble Castle is the most important. This $3 card can easily be worth as much as a Province if Castles aren't contested, and is still great value if you only manage to hold onto 4 Castles by game's end. Crumbling Castle is the weakest castle; but it's okay if you have overdraw. Small Castle is a key card if Castles are contested, and it's generally an efficient way to gain the later Castles. Crumbling Castle is the best target, but Haunted Castle and Small Castle itself are also fine to trash. Haunted Castle is usually great; it attacks your opponent and provides some payload to afford the later Castles. In decks with good draw and available +actions, Opulent Castle can be fantastic; it gives you the coins you need as you fill your deck with green. Sprawling Castle, Grand Castle, and King's Castle are straight points, and competitive or superior to Provinces. These are the cards you want to use your Small Castle to gain.

I had Castles up on rank 17 of my list, and I think it's being underrated. Similar to Fairgrounds, Castles adds a significant chunk of VP to the game, which rewards building longer. Castles are almost always good on a board if Fairgrounds would be good. While Castles can't be as insane as Fairgrounds in the presence of lots of cards outside of the kingdom (see Black Market), Castles are better any time it's inconvenient to have 15+ unique cards on one's deck - which is most of the time. I also give Castles the nod over Nobles. If Nobles is the only source of draw in the kingdom, it can be a key card, but otherwise it's not as impactful as Castles; it represents only 16 extra VP. I even have Dominate below Castles, because Dominate is an impractical target on a substantial fraction of kingdoms and it works on the shared Province pile.

I would say that Castles become much more worthwhile when you have the flexibility of some Remodel variant available to trash Castles for better Castles or Provinces. Haunted Castle provides 2 6-cost cards in one, and everything above Haunted Castle can be easily converted to Province or other Castles with trash-for-benefit while also giving some VP chips. Opulent Castle is sometimes nice for the on play.

When two players go for Castles or when you are agressively using trash-for-benefit on Castles, Humble Castle is actually one of the more expendable Castles. This is especially true if you are trashing Castles with Small Castle.

My subscription ran out this year and I haven't renewed it yet. As such I've played more base only games than I normally would. My biggest surprise was Artisan. It is superb. You do can so much from being able to gain/play the action on your current turn or gain a specific action to top deck for next turn. It combines both engine building and deck control in an extremely elegant way. This card makes any engine much MUCH better and should not be ignored.

Aaaaaaaaah you're supposed to start rankings from the bottom, not the top

Agreed - I would've preferred seeing the suspense building toward the top and getting the laggards out of the way first consistent with the other postings. At the same time I loved the scatter plot. It leads to interesting questions like "Who could possibly have ranked Annex in the top half?" or "Did someone win with a Farmland/Remodel/Province strategy right before doing their rankings and do they still feel that way about Farmland?"

My subscription ran out this year and I haven't renewed it yet. As such I've played more base only games than I normally would. My biggest surprise was Artisan. It is superb. You do can so much from being able to gain/play the action on your current turn or gain a specific action to top deck for next turn. It combines both engine building and deck control in an extremely elegant way. This card makes any engine much MUCH better and should not be ignored.

Well, Artisan is better in base only games than it is in full random, because you have all these crazy strong engine components in base but the payload is lacking. Artisan is absolutely bonkers in that environment: if there are strong components to gain for free, Artisan can basically work as payload because it allows you to build very explosively once you're drawing your deck (it's a bit clunky but it's better than nothing). When you have the expansions, the quality of the stuff you gain with Artisan is significantly lower on average and there are usually other, better options for payload.

It still helps you build the deck faster and stuff with the expansions so it's still a useful card, but it's not quite as good.

My subscription ran out this year and I haven't renewed it yet. As such I've played more base only games than I normally would. My biggest surprise was Artisan. It is superb. You do can so much from being able to gain/play the action on your current turn or gain a specific action to top deck for next turn. It combines both engine building and deck control in an extremely elegant way. This card makes any engine much MUCH better and should not be ignored.

Well, Artisan is better in base only games than it is in full random, because you have all these crazy strong engine components in base but the payload is lacking. Artisan is absolutely bonkers in that environment: if there are strong components to gain for free, Artisan can basically work as payload because it allows you to build very explosively once you're drawing your deck (it's a bit clunky but it's better than nothing). When you have the expansions, the quality of the stuff you gain with Artisan is significantly lower on average and there are usually other, better options for payload.

It still helps you build the deck faster and stuff with the expansions so it's still a useful card, but it's not quite as good.

Base set also has Throne Room. Throne Room on Artisan for two Duchies is a very potent end-game play.

It seems the current trend over the past year has been an increased perception of the value of trashers (Remake topping the s, Junk Dealer second in the s). I'm hoping the next trend will be an increased perception of the value of gainers, and let Artisan and Vampire bump up a bit more.

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tracer: One of the big risers in the 6+ cost list this year, Pathfinding, like King’s Court, can create engines on boards where there otherwise would be none, though perhaps the more common use is adding consistency and terminal space in an otherwise functioning engine.

How does Pathfinding add terminal space? I thought "terminal space" meant space for more terminals, in which case it's Lost Arts that adds terminal space.

tracer: One of the big risers in the 6+ cost list this year, Pathfinding, like King’s Court, can create engines on boards where there otherwise would be none, though perhaps the more common use is adding consistency and terminal space in an otherwise functioning engine.

How does Pathfinding add terminal space? I thought "terminal space" meant space for more terminals, in which case it's Lost Arts that adds terminal space.

Maybe the idea is that you need fewer smithy-type cards, since Pathfinding is doing the drawing for you? That's my guess.

tracer: One of the big risers in the 6+ cost list this year, Pathfinding, like King’s Court, can create engines on boards where there otherwise would be none, though perhaps the more common use is adding consistency and terminal space in an otherwise functioning engine.

How does Pathfinding add terminal space? I thought "terminal space" meant space for more terminals, in which case it's Lost Arts that adds terminal space.

Maybe the idea is that you need fewer smithy-type cards, since Pathfinding is doing the drawing for you? That's my guess.

More importantly, you need to play fewer Smithy-type cards, even if you have them, because you've already drawn your deck.

It seems the current trend over the past year has been an increased perception of the value of trashers (Remake topping the s, Junk Dealer second in the s). I'm hoping the next trend will be an increased perception of the value of gainers, and let Artisan and Vampire bump up a bit more.

Not sure if it's been done, but they could start ranking the cards by such categories...best $4 trashersbest $5 gainersetc.

I disagree with the placement and commentary around Castles. Castles are usually a more efficient way to green than Provinces. If the game ends on piles, neither pile is very relevant, but Provinces are a little better. But if the game is going to last a while, and there isn't a Province-emptying megaturn, you will probably lose if you ignore Castles. The full Castle stack (in 2P) is worth 45+ VP and is significantly easier to obtain than 8 Provinces (worth 48 VP). More realistically, you trash a couple Castles with Small Castles and grab a convenient Province to have a ~44 VP to 42 VP lead over a player who gets 7 Provinces.

You can start gaining Castles ever-so-slightly before you would gain Province, because the early Castles provide some payload. Of the early Castles, Humble Castle is the most important. This $3 card can easily be worth as much as a Province if Castles aren't contested, and is still great value if you only manage to hold onto 4 Castles by game's end. Crumbling Castle is the weakest castle; but it's okay if you have overdraw. Small Castle is a key card if Castles are contested, and it's generally an efficient way to gain the later Castles. Crumbling Castle is the best target, but Haunted Castle and Small Castle itself are also fine to trash. Haunted Castle is usually great; it attacks your opponent and provides some payload to afford the later Castles. In decks with good draw and available +actions, Opulent Castle can be fantastic; it gives you the coins you need as you fill your deck with green. Sprawling Castle, Grand Castle, and King's Castle are straight points, and competitive or superior to Provinces. These are the cards you want to use your Small Castle to gain.

I had Castles up on rank 17 of my list, and I think it's being underrated. Similar to Fairgrounds, Castles adds a significant chunk of VP to the game, which rewards building longer. Castles are almost always good on a board if Fairgrounds would be good. While Castles can't be as insane as Fairgrounds in the presence of lots of cards outside of the kingdom (see Black Market), Castles are better any time it's inconvenient to have 15+ unique cards on one's deck - which is most of the time. I also give Castles the nod over Nobles. If Nobles is the only source of draw in the kingdom, it can be a key card, but otherwise it's not as impactful as Castles; it represents only 16 extra VP. I even have Dominate below Castles, because Dominate is an impractical target on a substantial fraction of kingdoms and it works on the shared Province pile.

Does this still hold true when there's a 3 or 4-way race for Castles? I suppose at that point, you just supplement the rest of your points with the standard Victory cards (or whatever other pts can be had)?